Anyone born a Jew is considered a Jew forever, no matter how little regard they have for their own religion or how few rituals they practice. Our enemies see to that. I suppose a few drop out to embrace other religions, but their original Jewish skepticism adds an asterisk to any conversion.
No particular practice is required. In fact, I would be hard-pressed to put my finger on what a defining core Jewish ritual would be — there are so many: services, prayers, study, charity. I suppose if I had to pick one, I would choose lighting the Sabbath candles, the Friday night ushering in of the Sabbath day of rest. Resting is a very Jewish concept — who do you think was pushing for a 5-day-work week?
There is something central about Sabbath candlesticks. A concept of Sabbath, home, family, tradition that can be passed on. Part of that essential trio: candlelight, challah and wine. Displayed in our living room are our grandparents' brass candlesticks — or who knows, great-grandparents, it's not like they have a label. I hope to someday give them to our kids, though aren't 100 percent sure either boy will want them. Should have thought of that when I was manifesting my conflicted, weak tea view of faith all those years. Whoops. Sorry. Though I couldn't have ginned up an exaggerated belief just to find an eventual home for candlesticks.
No particular practice is required. In fact, I would be hard-pressed to put my finger on what a defining core Jewish ritual would be — there are so many: services, prayers, study, charity. I suppose if I had to pick one, I would choose lighting the Sabbath candles, the Friday night ushering in of the Sabbath day of rest. Resting is a very Jewish concept — who do you think was pushing for a 5-day-work week?
There is something central about Sabbath candlesticks. A concept of Sabbath, home, family, tradition that can be passed on. Part of that essential trio: candlelight, challah and wine. Displayed in our living room are our grandparents' brass candlesticks — or who knows, great-grandparents, it's not like they have a label. I hope to someday give them to our kids, though aren't 100 percent sure either boy will want them. Should have thought of that when I was manifesting my conflicted, weak tea view of faith all those years. Whoops. Sorry. Though I couldn't have ginned up an exaggerated belief just to find an eventual home for candlesticks.
I'm not alone. Assimilation is thinning the ranks of Jews with an efficiency that Hitler couldn't dream of. Most American Jews intermarry. More than a third of Jews told a Pew Research poll that it is unimportant to them whether their grandchildren are Jewish or not.
I knew that already. But somehow, seeing these cast off silver candlesticks, in a jewelry store on Lexington Avenue and 80th St on our recent visit to New York, stopped me short. The abandoned objects of Jewish families that petered out and had no one to give them to. It was like seeing huddled orphans through the slats of a truck, for one second, before the truck pulled away. The tangible evidence, the piles of eyeglasses, the cast-off baggage, jettisoning the faith that got their forebears through 2,500 years. That strikes me as unfortunate, maybe even careless. Faith is funny. It's something you don't need at all, until you do, very much.
I’m not Jewish, or maybe there’s a schmeckle somewhere; but I believe it’s in the polishing of the silver that is why no one wants these silver items in their homes anymore. Why polish when you can rest?
ReplyDeletethank you mr Steinberg for sharing this information and how you feel about your heritage.
ReplyDeleteSad about those abandoned candlesticks.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is. There were brass candlesticks in our dining room when I was growing up. No idea how old they were, or their history. My wife says that when my parents' condo was sold, they either went to a Judaica store in Delray Beach, or my sister got them. Haven't thought about them in twenty years. Until Mr. S. wrote this piece, and then I felt a stab of sadness and a twinge of regret. But only briefly. Very briefly.
DeleteMy ethnic origins are as Jewish as lox or gefilte fish. My old man had no use for Judaism because his parents were too poor to send him to Hebrew school. My mother was another story entirely. She was fairly religious, and only spoke Yiddish until she started school in Lawndale. She observed all the holidays and practiced many of the religious rituals. So I was raised in a Jewish home, and some of it did rub off on me. For a while, anyway.
But I guess somebody forgot to install some vital part before I left the factory. The engine sputters and misses. After two years of Hebrew school, I dropped out, and wouldn't go back. Oh, I loved the language, and learning the history of my people, but I didn't definitely want to miss Annette on afternoon TV. Fifth grade, and the juices were stirring. Couldn't miss Zorro, either. And I didn't.
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That was the last of the whole megillah for me. I hardly dated at all in high school, and those few dates were rarely among my own faith. I've had two non-Jewish wives. No kids, by choice...so no worries about any non-observant or "mixed" grandkids. To read that nearly three-quarters of non-Orthodox Jews marry non-Jews is to realize how much that figure has skyrocketed...it was a fraction of that figure when I was growing up.
To the conservative Jews, and the Orthodox, I'm a Jew, and always will be, but I'm not really Jewish in their eyes. One of the tribe, but non-observant. So I'm guilty as charged. No faith, no observances, and most of all, no descendants, so I'm helping to kill off my tribe. I come to the latke party and I stay for the klezmer music. It's all about ethnicity with me, and not much else.
Certainly not about any spirituality, or any belief in a higher power. And yet, I still say the Hanukkah blessings over the same menorah I've been lighting for sixty-five years. Go figure, huh, boychik? Some rituals, and some artifacts, you don't give up so easily.
A bit O/T, but now we have an article in the Sun-Times where Lightfoot, as disastrous a mayor as there ever was, until the clown who replaced, has said it's anti-Semitism to attack Reinsdorf as the cheap rotten owner of the White Sox.
ReplyDeleteWell guess what Lori, you utter failure as mayor,, it's now 62 years from my bar mitzvah & I flat out hate that jerk for scamming a free ballpark from us, the taxpayers 33 years ago & now he doesn't like the ballpark he had designed to his specifications & wants to scam us taxpayers out of yet another free ballpark two miles north of that one, which still isn't paid off!
Not a sox fan?
DeleteSo many historical items are entering the trash bin of history. Not just Jewish ones. I understand Mr. Steinbergs meaning but wish to expand the idea to include the many many things once precious that are now, well, just a pain in the ass for recent generations to deal with. Sad in the fact a physical connection with your ancestors is gone replaced by a love of “cloud “ photos. I am guilty as well. We just converted our catche of family pictures that no one ever really looked through to an online portal. We still have the physical photos including some that were too large to copy. My wife says the children can throw them away after she is dead.
ReplyDeleteI'd guess the rosary bead business isn't what it used to be either.
ReplyDeleteYour article reminded me of a learning experience thirty-some years ago. I was working a Saturday afternoon for the electric company. The dispatcher sent me to a single cutomer out of lights in West Rogers Park. I found a transformer out of commission. All the customers on the entire block were out of lights. The skeptical dispatcher doubted me because only one customer had called.
We couldn't understand why nobody else had called until I spoke with a Jewish gentleman who came out. He told me it was the Sabbath; a day of rest. No work and no asking someone else to do work. No cooking or cleaning. Mandatory rest was a bit foreign to me.
He explained that the routine and disciplne made it easier to stay home with his family and hopefully tend to some spiritual pursuits. They would always be more work to do. An appealing philosophy!
The one customer who had called was a little Irish woman at the end of the block. A fallen tree limb had torn down some wires and tripped the transformer fuse. The limb landed in her yard, knocking over a fence, and breaking into an arched bower just above a statue of Mary. While she thought it was a divine intervention, I was impressed with the improbability of the whole situation.
nice story terry
DeleteI have my mother's cedar chest, my grandfather's rocking chair, the wing chair that was the first piece of furniture my parents bought when they got married in 1932. The bedroom set my aunt bought in the 1940s. The bivouac desk my late best friend loved. I have no children. Who will love those treasured pieces of history when I'm gone (and I'm almost 80)? The old people and things seem to have lost their value.
ReplyDeleteI have a side table from my grandparents north dakota farm and a mirror that was my great aunts, and another ornate side table from same aunt. I had dishes from my grandmother that I gave to one of my cousins-a generation younger than me along with some end tables and a beautiful round table with a leather top-stained from the water from a vase my grandmother used to put cut flowers on-always reminded my of those summer visits. I have lots of crochet items form my grandmother. My son wanted none of our very nice cherry dining room furniture when we moved to a retirement community 3 years ago. I look at some of the things I still love and know that no family member will want them. So I just enjoy the stuff now and hope that maybe???? my granddaughter might be interested.
DeleteIKEA
DeleteThose orphaned candlesticks are a compact representation of the bigger problem, which is that, yes, every generation adds another layer of... stuff... to the growing pile that has to go someplace in the care of someone.
ReplyDeleteMy family is just wrapping our heads around what to do with the mountain of stuff currently filling our parents' house. Some of the heirlooms are actually high-value, but a lot of it is everyday stuff from everyday life of a hundred years ago. It was of modest value back then, and triggers a lot of memories for us, but isn't going to easily sell itself to anyone else.
While I understand the comments about tossing old photos, I think it's important to digitize them now, while they still exist in any form at all. We recently digitized about 5400 color Kodachrome slides shot by my Dad between 1960 and about 2010, fifty years' worth of perfectly stored, perfectly colored images that look like they were taken yesterday. One basement flood could have wiped them out, but now we have a dozen digital copies of the entire set, copied off a single thumb drive and circulated to relatives around the world (one set exists in its entirety on my phone, and I show them to Dad during my weekly visits with him), and we can copy the entire set again at any time.
So yes, every year we pile things higher and deeper around ourselves. We are always having to decide what to do with something or other. Hoarders cannot decide what to do with anything. It's not a matter of whether it's loved, but whether we, in a literal sense, can live with it.
have you seen the Carlin monologue about stuff
DeleteI've long been conflicted about religion in a similar fashion, but with regard to Catholicism rather than Judaism. On the one hand, I think it's absurd and contradictory that all these great cathedrals and churches have been built for a thousand years in order to honor Christ, who specifically preached simplicity and advised giving all one's money and goods to the poor. On the other hand, I always feel different inside one of those buildings than I do inside a magnificent secular building, so I'm, uh, conflicted about that.
ReplyDeleteWhen I see the statistics about the percentage of "nones" rising in polls about religion, I think -- well, yeah, of course. But when they merge churches, or abandon them altogether, it seems kinda sad. Many would disagree with that, I'm sure!
It remains very interesting to me how many of your posts are about being Jewish, celebrating Jewish holidays, etc., today to the point of your concluding sentence: "It's something you don't need at all, until you do, very much." While I think I recall that on multiple occasions, you've said something to the effect of having never believed in God for one minute. I understand it quite well. Conflicted.
This profile of Garry Wills is off-topic, but maybe in the ballpark, and I thought I'd throw it in here. He's an (almost) life-long Catholic and Northwestern University scholar who's written dozens of books about faith, the church and secular topics, one of which is titled "Why I Am a Catholic." Recently he decided that, at 90, he "he could not continue to be Catholic." That's remarkable to me. Though, as a big fan of St. Augustine, he considers himself, instead, to be an "Augustinian Christian."
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/05/30/garry-wills-at-90-the-influential-historian-has-become-his-own-iconoclast/?share=etiinhiemrhgncalt3rt
I was raised Catholic as were my sisters and brother. None of us still practice although all the grands have been baptized, they don't either. For me, it's the Catholic Church's refusal to allow women priests and to allow priests to marry. And of course the abuse issue.
DeleteBravo, Andy, You've got style. And I like your style.
ReplyDeleteOur little 1941 bungalow of less than a thousand square feet is the Grizz and Lucinda Museum of 20th-Century Pop Culture. A dozen crammed book cases, including the built-ins A wall of LPs. Hundreds of VCR tapes and audio cassettes. No more wall space for any artwork or photography. Drawers and closets full of decades-old T-shirts.
All of our passions...baseball, history, weather, WWII, streetcars, Coca-Cola, cats...are well-represented. Younger people...the few that ever set foot in here...gawk in amazement. A dealer of collectibles...probably not so much.
Like a summer storm, or a blizzard on the radar, the problem is approaching, and is as unstoppable as time and nature...what happens to all this crap in another decade or so? Probably less. Far less.
We both turned 77 this summer. No kids. No grandkids. My wife's nephews, and their kids, will have no interest in any of this stuff. Where will all these "objects of much affection"...as a deceased friend called her own personal treasures...end up? Probably in a dumpster--and then in a landfill.
The thought of it makes me sick at heart, and in my stomach. So I push these disturbing and unsettling thoughts aside, yet again. I know we have to downsize and thin out the piles and do the death-cleaning thing, but I just can't bring myself do it. I fill up a few trashcans with old newspaper clippings and ancient magazines, and then the effort slows, peters out, and stops.
Can't kick my lifelong jones...the acquiring and the buying, the scoring and the schnorring. I just continue to bring stuff in, like the 39-volume Time-Life history of WWII. Sometimes, it's not even the enjoyment of a new find...it's just the possession of it. The discovery and then the acquisition, followed by the ownership.
Hey, a 1933 World's Fair key to the city. Wow...a '69 Cubs wastebasket. Damn...an image of the low-flying Graf Zeppelin, with the unmistakable swastika on the tail. Makes me feel happier...and wealthier. Is that what hoarding is? I'll leave that to the shrinks.
The purging is going to have to happen. Meanwhile, we're just soldiering on, and getting older and more feeble by the day. What to do? . I'll think about it tomorrow. Or the day after. Or maybe the day after that.
Holy shit. What everyone has said makes me think that all of Neil's readers and responders are sentimental old farts, like me. Among the many things I possess is a rusty can of Williams After Shave Talc...the only thing my father owned that belonged to his father, who burned to death in 1941, five years before I was born. For whatever reason it matters, I treasure it. Not so for my children.
ReplyDeleteAs an artist, like so many of my friends, I have a lifetime of my own creations that no one wants. What to do with them? Everything in my environment has a story. But it is my story. I lay awake at night knowing I should get rid of all those treasures lest they become an albatross to my kids. In the end, I try not to worry about it and tease that they will have one great bonfire when I am gone. By then, all those things will no longer have meaning. Nor will I care one whit about them. I'm good with that. Yet, as long as I am here, I persist in telling stories that give them meaning. Who knows? Maybe someone will save them from a pawn shop.
if I haven't worn it in a year I donate it. if I haven't listened to it two years I donate it. but first a photo added to the thumb drive. just completed a relocation and tried to sell all the LPs my eldest son wouldn't hear of it. did a huge purge of furnishings art and livestock. somehow my mothers crap - dead two years- is languishing in a storage locker unseen and unwanted. my sister is unable to dispose of it.
ReplyDeletestill have the oak dining table my father was born upon on goose island . sitting at it now as I type this